Autumn / Winter 24 - music thread

[northerngoldilocks]

Feels like time for a new thread for the new school year!

Come and talk about music lessons, choosing instruments, exams, auditions, specialist schools, orchestras or whatever other music activities are going on. Everyone is welcome, from those with total beginners to those whose children are studying music at advanced levels. Ask for advice or share successes or struggles.

Nyo inspire will refund travel expenses too if low income as we're hoping to do that too. I'm so impressed.

Weve just got a local bursary for my duaghters Saturday Orchestra for the year and I am so very very relieved. We can only apply once every 2 years now and we're not on UC anymore so I wasn't sure if we'd still be eligible.

@Bearyinlove Hi, I happen to have a decent 3/4 violin to sell. It's my daughter's. Just PMed you.

Also a veteran Slyo family who have heard nothing from Lsso so far. When were we due to hear? Agree that Slyo is cheap. The hot lunch is usually popular.

Sadly sandwiches again at Christmas. But they even do those pretty well!

SLYO is fantastic value (even with the sandwiches) - especially if you get a specialist tutor on your instrument.

They got a bassoonist in to teach dd2 contra the time before last as she'd never done it before. It appears to be part of her school technical assessment this term so she's grateful for having had the help.

Today we are down at music Hogwarts for pickup, which has worked well in terms of finally meeting DD's bassoon teacher (lovely, and very encouraging) and seeing last night's concert in which she was choir not orchestra which was really nice to see. Slightly alarmed by talk of Grade 8 bassoon next term - she doesn't know one of the pieces yet. Not sure she's even started it, but I do understand it does need getting out of the way.

Apart from NYO inspire we are hoping for a quiet half term, with revision for all, as we also have two in Year 13.

NYO offer up to full bursaries - their ethos is that no one should miss out due to financial barriers.

Lsso audition time and excerpts arrived with us this pm. Bit of extra work for the hols- fortunate that dd2 did holst’s planets last term- less fortunate that she was playing contra and this is bassoon 1. Got to help though.

My kid reckons short rehearsal windows are deliberate. He had a workshop with a sector of a professional orchestra the other week, thr rep was supplied 4 days before. He’s got another one in 3 weeks and is fully expecting to find out the rep a week before, if that. Good luck to all auditionees.

is there a thread on young musician of the year?

Haven't seen one particularly iam - watching along now. I think I'm picking a clear winner, will see if I'm right but we'd probably better not spoiler this thread in case anyone's watching tomorrow!

@thirdfiddle I'm not sure i'm a fan of the new way they've done the rounds. Being a brass player, I've hardly seen any brass. Unless I've missed them all??
I thought the winner was very well deserved.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/telly_addicts/5171365-young-musicians-of-the-year

They are all so impressive on Young Musician, but I agree it would have been better for young brass and wind players to have seen a bit more of that too- which is why I liked the category finals.

DD2 is home for two weeks - which is lovely. I am trying not to be insulted by listening to her sightread the Grade 5 2025 syllabus that my foster daughter has left out. I worked flipping hard for my Grade 5 piano back in the day (and I failed it the first time)... she makes it look like some kind of laugh, without having had any lessons.

I don't think she ever plays the piano at school because everyone else is obviously insanely good, so she enjoys noodling around on it when she comes back.

I guess what is really showing is that learning one or two instruments makes others easier. But really!

Wow she sounds incredibly talented!

@GeneralMusings she's just very, very logical - so reading music comes easily to her, and she's immersed in it all the time now which makes it so much simpler.

I should stress she's not playing them with any actual style, or any dynamics.

They all find different bits of music easy or hard depending, I think. She just wishes she'd had piano lessons earlier so is trying to make up for it.

@minisnowballs wow that sounds very impressive - to sightread without any lessons!

DS also loves sight reading. Today his teacher gave him some harder sight readings than his upcoming grade 5 violin exam and he's excited!

He does struggle with aural though especially the clapping. I heard from somewhere that you're either good at sight reading or aural, because some people learn by vision others by ear.

DC like sight-reading. Possibly in their cases a consequence of liking ensembles a lot more than they like practice!

Agree about the wind and brass in BBCYM. Though the finalists were very impressive indeed. I do have a suspicion it is easier to look insanely virtuoso on piano with great handfuls of chords than on say trumpet when you can only play one note at a time.

I didn't pick the right winner.

That was my thoughts too. There's different challenges on different instruments. It's unfair to compare different instruments. At least on the piano you don't have to worry about tuning!

That's really interesting re sight reading @chickentikkasalad as I had that in my mind from somewhere too. Also heard sight reading and maths ability are meant to go hand in hand. DS2 home for HT with his first half term as a cathedral chorister under his belt and seems to have made pretty quick progress on his new instruments, as well as theory and sight reading. Big relief! He's weaker in maths than in arts subjects so I'm really relived on the sight reading! I'm sure the total immersion approach helps though.

Completely agree about the BBC young musician format. There is so much more repertoire for piano, violin and cello compared to other instruments, and lush romantic repertoire at that - it’s not really a fair contest. And it’s great to showcase a range of instruments. That fantastic final with Jess Gillam, Ben Goldscheider and Sheku Kanneh Mason probably wouldn’t have happened under the new format.

I also thought it was a shame that they didn’t have specialist judges. My friend who is a prof cellist was quite critical of one of the cellists (not Hugo) for reasons that were apparently obvious to a string player but seemingly not picked up on by the judges, though they obviously don’t show all their deliberation so it’s hard to say.

However, I do think the right person won and all the finalists were brilliant.

@Legoninjago1 I haven't thought about the math and sight reading. That makes sense as it's both about logical thinking anyway.

@Legoninjago1 that's great news - must be a relief for you!

DD2 is excellent at half of maths - give her algebra and she's amazing, but anything involving triangles is right out. When she has done IQ tests her numerical reasoning hits the top of the scale, but her spatial is completely average. Guess that's enough for the sightreading.

Just to disprove the theory at an individual level, DS is amazing at maths. He is average at best at sight reading. He's better on flute than piano but that's generally true of anyone doing piano plus a singe line instrument!

I think I read somewhere that musicians are usually good at maths or languages or both. It’s probably a mix of cause and effect though as im sure reading music helps to develop all of those areas of your brain!

When I was in NYO the most common school leavers destination was Oxbridge, not music college, which I thought was quite interesting.